7 ms·
If the sub imploded shortly after reaching the titanic, how exactly did the people on board die? Was it an instant pressurized death? Do they drown or something
by TheCaptain4815 3y ago
If the sub imploded shortly after reaching the titanic, how exactly did the people on board die? Was it an instant pressurized death? Do they drown or something?
- tedivm 3y agoSomeone on reddit did out the math- they were crushed before they had any idea what happened.
- andrewmunsell 3y agoThere's obvious differences between the Oceangate sub and this (1 atm difference, this is a thinner steel(?) railroad tanker not a sub), but I think it effectively demonstrates how violent and quick an implosion would be: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz95_VvTxZM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz95_VvTxZM Video contents: An experiment where the vacuum safety valves were removed from an oil tanker railroad car, and a vacuum was placed inside the car, resulting in it crumpling in an implosion. There is no gore or other specific disturbing content
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Dave_TRS 3y agoInteresting a commenter on the video notes the pressure there is equivalent to only 10 meters underwater. Imagine the force 2 miles below
- soneil 3y ago10 meters of water is one atmosphere, so they're right - 0 on the inside and 1 on the outside is a pressure differential of one atmosphere. "almost 4000 meters of water" is "almost 400 atmospheres". About 2.7 tons per square inch. I find that that absolutely unimaginable. - I can't find any equivalence that my brain can make sense of.
- 101008 3y agoI am probably too stupid, but how is that possible? A lot of divers go 10 meters underwater and don't die of pressure, right?
- Qem 3y agoPressure equalizes as they descend slowly. It's different from descending 4000m inside an armoured can and have it all released upon you in a split second.
- ceejayoz 3y agoHumans are less compressible than an empty steel tank (being mostly water) and when they dive they don't teleport from 0 to 10 meters in an instant.
- wholinator2 3y agoWell, sea level is at 1 atm already, so an increase to 2 atm isn't immediately catastrophic. However, if you took that tank filled entirely with sea level air and shoved it down 30 feet under the water the same thing would happen. It instantly crumples because its hollow. We're full of water with some air in a couple places. We'd crumple too if we were just a layer of skin over an air sac. But as it stands, the human body can withstand that pressure alright
- routerl 3y agoThe sub wasn't steel, it was a carbon fibre weave. The tiniest crack would have caused catastrophic shattering of the hull. For every ten meters of descent, pressure increases by 1 atmosphere. At 4000 meters, that's 400 atm, or ~40 Mega Pascals, which is significantly higher than the pressure caused by the bomb that leveled a building in Oklahoma. The hull shattered catastrophically, and the pressure wave liquified the occupants instantly. It's horrifying, but at least it was painless.
- lazide 3y agoYup - and if someone had been inside the tank in that YouTube video they’d likely have been dead almost instantly too when it imploded. (Even if we forget about the vacuum) Probably the fastest and least painful way to die, short of sitting on a 2000 lb bomb or the like when it goes off.
- pfdietz 3y agoWhen death occurs faster than nerve impulses can travel to/in the brain, yeah.
- TechBro8615 3y agoFor context, some numbers I saw estimated the implosion would take about 1ms, and it takes about 25ms for signals to travel from nerve endings to the brain.
- jollyllama 3y agoSo what you're saying is, there is a reliable means of death that is, in all likelihood, more humane than any practiced by states with capital punishment?
- TechBro8615 3y agoIt's a good question, I was wondering the same. Do we even have any sort of artificial means for generating that kind of pressure? I suppose we could drop someone into a trash compactor, but it might be difficult to convince people that's more humane than a simple injection, even if it technically is.
- pfdietz 3y agoExplosives.
- fnord77 3y agobut your brain is in fluid and fluid isn't compressible much at that pressure
- lazide 3y agoThe extremely rapid pressure change would shred everything into fine pulp instantly.
- localplume 3y ago[dead]
- Geeek 3y agoI am wondering the same. Everyone is talking about the rapid implosion of the sub, but can we assume that the bodies just got instantly crushed into nothing?
- jacquesm 3y agoDepending on your definition of 'instantly' and 'crushed' yes. Milliseconds, at most.
- qup 3y agoI think "before realization, fear, or even pain set in" is well within everyone's definition of instant death.
- jacquesm 3y agoYes, that was the point. You wouldn't even know what happened. That cargo wagon depressurization and implosion video linked from elsewhere in this thread is a very nice demo, but it only has one atmosphere to work with. And I can't even see the state change on the frame-by-frame, just a very brief hint that something is about to happen (slight deformation), and in the next frame it's all crumpled up and bent.
- qup 3y agoWell, if you had to die, that's sure a nice way to go about it. Not that anyone had to die. I'll watch the drone footage of the deep ocean, thanks.
- ilyt 3y agoIt's explosives-induced explosion level of pressure. Big explosion
- salawat 3y agoLets put it this way. If it was structurally compromised, the implosion would be so fast, a combustion event a la what happens in diesel engines would have occurred. There would be no bodies. There would only be shreds of pressure hull. The titanium hemispheres may have maintained their shape. There is a slight chance it may have been a pinhole leak, and someone had a second to go "Uh..." before the rest of the structure started giving way. It is clear that even these "strain gauges and microphones" to detect compromise of the structure were useless, or that the issure ultimately rested on the window in the front. The main point to keep in mind is that short of finding the two hemispheres in the next day or so, we'll likely not know the full details with regard to the course of events of the unmaking of the vehicle. The Sea has claimed them, and she is wont to give up her dead. Hubris, met by the cold hard edge of reality, has proven to be an insufficient aegis once again. May they rest in peace.
- saberdancer 3y agoTheir bodies are also pressurized at 1 atms, after being exposed to 400 atms they instantly died. My guess is that they were effectively vaporized/liquified. Much better way to go then suffocate in darkness.
- ceejayoz 3y agoIt's a good guess. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin > Investigation by forensic pathologists determined that Hellevik, being exposed to the highest pressure gradient and in the process of moving to secure the inner door, was forced through the crescent-shaped opening measuring 60 centimetres (24 in) long created by the jammed interior trunk door. With the escaping air and pressure, it included bisection of his thoracoabdominal cavity, which resulted in fragmentation of his body, followed by expulsion of all of the internal organs of his chest and abdomen, except the trachea and a section of small intestine, and of the thoracic spine. These were projected some distance, one section being found 10 metres (30 ft) vertically above the exterior pressure door. That's with a nine atmosphere pressure differential. The Titanic is at about 400 atmospheres.
- ilyt 3y agoI tried to find [1] how much pressure explosion of a grenade would cause. It would take a lot of grenades to get to 400 atmospheres... - [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5514183/#:~:text=268 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5514183/#:~:tex...
- jacquesm 3y agoI wonder if you even could, given the fact that that stuff is trying to get away from each other you'd have to get the timing right to a ridiculous degree of precision.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- alangibson 3y agoPressure at that depth is about 5800 psi. Imagine 3 ton, 1 cubic inch cubes being dropped on every square inch of your body from every side all at once and you'll have your answer.
- rich_sasha 3y agoHmm, but human body is mostly solids and liquids, not very compressible. Their lungs and airways, sure, would be compressed to nothing, but what of the rest of their bodies? Eg I'd imagine the poor souls on the Titanic next door are not crushed by the pressure, for the same reason. Or with scuba diving, deep scuba is complicated and dangerous for many reasons, but the pressure compressing the body is not one of them.
- 2-718-281-828 3y agoi'd assume the air forced into various cavities (especially the skull) would send shock waves into neighbouring tissue ripping everything apart upon surge of pressure. also probably lots of turbulence creating shearing forces also ripping everything apart. so, everybody ripped apart. titanic victims sank slowly allowing for continuous evacuation of cavities. air streaming out and water in.
- epcoa 3y agoThink about why a parachute works. It’s the same concept.
- duncan-donuts 3y agoYeah but the pressure equalization happens so fast you’d almost certainly feel nothing.
- masklinn 3y agoNo time to drown, when the pressure vessel failed they basically found themselves in a hydraulic press. The entire thing would have imploded as the pressure inside the vessel went from 1 to 400atm. Instantly too, as carbon fibre is brittle, this would not have been a progressive process.